Recently I needed a developer to help me with a small job on this website. I asked on Twitter who people recommended for a WordPress/My Emma integration and styling job. Very quickly, a local WordPress developer got in touch, we agreed on the project and he got to work. (Doesn’t our new spiffy orange email signup form look great in the right column? Please go right ahead and use it if you haven’t already! But I digress….) Over the next few days, many WordPress developers from all over the world reached out to me to offer their services. Many replied to me on Twitter, but others went a step further, found my contact info and sent a proposal.

I was fascinated by this. Most of the people who reached out weren’t my followers before and had never interacted with me before. I suppose they were searching the public timeline for people who need them. When it comes down to it, although the developer I selected was in Nashville just like I was, I found the services I needed by posting online and seeing what happened.

As we build relationships with others via social media, it’s worth thinking about how you go about building trust online. Why was I comfortable immediately working with the developer I selected? In that case, while I didn’t know him before, he was from my city. After a quick check online, I realized I knew the school where he’d received his training well. What if I’d needed his work for a client instead of myself? I could have made one phone call to get a personal reference on him. What if I hadn’t known people running his school? I would have looked harder at what he posts online and other evidence of his expertise. I would have needed more evidence of his trustworthiness.

When you use social media or publish a website, for yourself or for your job, what are you doing that inspires trust? How much do you reveal about yourself? I’ve seen many well-publicized cases where making personal information available online becomes dangerous, but I confess I usually err on the side of revealing a fair amount about myself. I’m in business, after all, and people have to be able to get in touch with me for us to work together. That’s easy to say when I work in an industry segment that’s less likely to be controversial. But you don’t have to be in politics or gaming to deal with a stalker—their terror is agnostic to that.

The Takeaway on Building Trust Online

Do you represent a brand or organization that interacts with the public, or with others in your industry? Take an objective look at how hard it is to find a person and make a connection in your organization. Many organizations err on the side of gatekeeping, locking down employee directories, including email addresses and phone numbers, for both security and competitive reasons. I understand why they do, but I also know that those organizations make it harder to establish and build trusting relationships.

Where do you fall on this continuum? Do your online decisions represent you and your organization accurately? How are you building trust online?

I spend a fair amount of time every week learning more about my craft. When we pitch our expertise to prospective clients, we’re betting on the fact that Creek Content understands its game better than anyone else.

So we’re always learning. I’ve always loved the phrase “lifelong learner,” perhaps because it so aptly describes what I’m aspiring to be. And it might not surprise you to hear that after 20 years in my career, I read a lot of junk.

Eek! I said that out loud. Yes, a lot of the advice you’ll get about dealing with your content — through content strategy, or for a specific purpose like content marketing — is crap. There it is. This is a pretty new field, but it’s hot, and I highly recommend you evaluate the source carefully before you run off to do whatever it is you just read about.

But today, with great delight, I read such a wonderful piece from Joe Pulizzi [who’s been around a long time too, and knows whereof he speaks], that I wanted to share it with you right away. If you’re contemplating [or doing] content marketing, take a quick read through Joe’s post today and think about how that impacts your own work.

If you don’t own your channel, you’d better know why.

It’s perfectly legit to use channels owned by others. You might be crazy if you’re NOT using social media. [I’m loathe to name any absolutes, even for a statement like that. My clients already know my favorite answer is, “It depends.”] But I’m definitely concerned for you if everything you create resides on someone else’s platform. Read Joe’s post on owning your channel to learn why.

Here recently, I’ve been feeling pretty sorry for my friends in marketing. Because this has to be one of the hardest times to be a marketer ever.

Oh, for sure, there are amazing tools out there. Crazy-awesome technology that you can use to learn more about your audience or better connect with your customers. Analytics for everything. We don’t have to wonder anymore…we can measure it.

But that brings the inherent challenge of staying on top of new technology all the time. I’ve begun to think of this as the marketing delta. (Delta is used in math to signify change.) Keeping up with the constant change is challenging enough, but it leads to a secondary problem that is potentially much worse: Deciding how to spend your limited focus.

I could go on all day about the problem, but I will tell you that my solution isn’t really a secret weapon. It’s Twitter.

For years, I’ve helped friends who aren’t finding social media effective, showing them how I use Twitter for research. Here’s what I do:

I follow leaders in related fields like user experience design, product development, and marketing. Much of my work is related to health care, so I follow people in health care communications, the science of behavior change, neuroscience, and more.

Once a month or so, I check out the most recent tweets from several trusted thought leaders. One of the tricks of Twitter is that if someone @ replies another user, you only see it in your timeline if you also follow that person. But if you look through directly at the tweets of a user, you’ll see everything they’ve said publicly. With this tactic, I often find other good folks to follow–the people that my trusted thought leaders listen to and talk with.

I actively seek out people who are leaders in other fields, sometimes related, sometimes not. I follow leaders in journalism and new media, business management, public speaking and presentations, the Internet of Things, programming, network security, and several other fields that are at best tangentially related to my current work. I don’t necessarily want to learn something specific, but you’d be surprised how often these wild-card accounts are the ones I get great information from.

With these kinds of people populating my Twitter stream, I dip in and out a few times a day. Unless I’m following a live-streamed event, I rarely spend more than 20 minutes a day on Twitter total. But I have it open all the time, and I just take a look from time to time to see what the chatter’s about. With this process, I learn about things that I’d never see otherwise.

I also trim the accounts I follow from time to time. Again, once a month or so, I skim through my timeline and ask myself these questions:

Do I normally ignore this person’s tweets? (Sometimes I’ll follow someone because of a specific event or issue, and once it’s over, their tweets aren’t useful to me anymore.)

Does this person only tweet links, with no explanation of their value? This is one of my biggest pet peeves on Twitter.

Does this person waste my time with social media contest entries or lots of irrelevant hashtags? Those kinds of things might be fun for some, but I’m in this for business and that kind of clutter wastes my time.

If you’re managing a significant need for research in your own field, Twitter is a great tool to consider. (And undoubtedly my interests are particularly well-represented there, because I work in digital communications. But don’t assume that your field isn’t, even if you’re in something very different.)

Whatever your delta, don’t let yourself get overwhelmed with the rapid pace of change. Do a little research, devote a bit of regular time to staying on top of the latest trends, and spend the rest of time focusing on what really matters.

Creek Content Founder and Principal Strategist Laura Creekmore was recently featured on All About Women, answering questions about social media for business, educating yourself on social media as a parent and the privacy concerns that accompany it all. All About Women is a non-profit organization by and for women, designed to help those who want to live healthier lives.

Laura answered questions ranging from simply defining the term “social media” to more delicate questions about privacy. For instance, what social media tools should small businesses be using?

“There’s no one right answer to this question. Start by thinking about your customers… Where do they spend their time online? What do they expect to be able to do there?” Laura goes on to explain that Facebook isn’t perfect for every business — neither is LinkedIn or Twitter.

“If you don’t need to use Twitter to reach your customers, it still may be one of your most valuable research and professional-connection tools; it is for my company.”

If you happen to be in Austin Saturday, you should come see me at BlogathonATX!

This Saturday marks the third Blogathon in Austin, which started innocently when organizer Ilene Haddad asked on Twitter if anyone wanted to get together and blog one afternoon. It’s now a day-long event that includes a tech room with experts to help you tweak (or even start) your blog, awesome food donated from great local businesses to keep us fueled for the day, and presenters who will answer blogging and social media questions related to content, finding your voice, engaging your audience and much more. Like me. I’ll be in the hot seat answering questions about personal vs. business blogging.

For instance: If you’re a business owner, should you have a business blog and a personal blog? What about separate social media accounts? Companies have social media policies, should individuals have personal policies?

We’ll be doing lots of things related to blogging — helping each other brainstorm ideas, offering input on design and maybe even starting new blogs with new friends over shared interests. But they’re also be lots of learning and fun. And I think that’s my favorite part.

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If you’re in health care, insurance, financial services, or another highly regulated field, you don’t need a copywriter. You don’t need another marketer. You need professionals who understand the complex problems you face, and who can help you reach your customers with the information they need to make wise decisions.